To create a safe and respectful atmosphere we ask that all of us follow a few groundrules. After the discussion is over, take a few minutes with your co-facilitator to reflect on the content and process of the discussion; a few written notes for future reference might be helpful. Seek feedback from others other staff members present or participants. You will learn much from seeking feedback from others, especially from your co-facilitator or other staff members.
Ask what you did that went well what you did to keep the discussion moving, motivate others to take risks and set the appropriate tone. Resource Manual Table of Contents. Checking Yourself. Encouraging Participation. Advancing and Deepening the Discussion. Roles People Play in Groups. Group Discussion Models. Conflict Mediation Guidelines. The ability to handle and diffuse tension is a skill that sets expert facilitators apart from the others.
Group facilitation is often exciting and productive, though differences of opinion can form in workshops or meetings you might be facilitating. Remember, the group has a goal, and individual differences will need to be handled to achieve that. Given the time and scope of the session, not every interpersonal difference can or should be resolved; however, it is important that you know the right techniques and group processes for diffusing tension.
Sometimes this might mean breaking up the work into smaller groups, taking a break, shifting perspectives or changing the scenery, etc.
Dealing with conflict-stacked situations are among the biggest challenges to effective facilitation. Often, there are underlying conflicts behind disagreements taking place in a conversation. However, you still need to keep in mind that the group has its own goals, and one person hijacking all the attention is a dangerous track.
At certain times, you may be better off trying to speak to that person in private to discover what drives them, and at minimum, give feedback to help them understand how their behaviour affects the group. Interpersonal communication is again an important part of effective facilitation and ensuring you have these facilitation skills can make your job in a workshop much easier. Different points of view naturally emerge in a discussion.
It is the job of the facilitator to help the group find common ground among different opinions, simultaneously helping the group arrive at a decision that is accepted by everyone. Consensus, in this context, does not mean that everyone must agree with the final decision but that everyone gets an opportunity to share their opinion with the group, and that people are aware of the reasons why a particular decision was made.
In other words, this is called creating a transparent process. For instance, if you choose to use simple dot-voting as the technique to come up with a set of the most preferred ideas after an idea generation activity, then everybody should be made aware why only those most popular ideas will be considered further. In that way everyone understands the process that leads to a final decision.
Remember that facilitation is the art of making a process simpler or easier. Meetings have time limits. This is especially true in effective and productive organizational cultures. A carefully crafted agenda must take into account how much time can be allocated for each activity during a session.
Group facilitation with large or complicated groups especially ask for good time management skills. It is important that you are aware of the passing time during a meeting and that you let participants know when time is running short for an activity.
In general, effective facilitation assumes efficient timekeeping, with only well-grounded exceptions for going overtime in discussions. Remember, if something takes more time than planned, it usually comes at the expense of some other item on the agenda. Some activities require more attention from participants, some require less, but no individual will maintain the same level of attention and energy during a full-day workshop. You can make sure to design sessions with varying group activities to keep people engaged, and give regular breaks every minutes at least.
Secondly, use some energiser activities to instill energy in the room when the energy level is lower than it should be for productive work. Planning a good process for an event will help you immensely. Being prepared means you will confidently be able to handle unforeseen situations and adjust the pre-planned process more easily as necessary. Usually, activities and discussions end up taking more time than initially planned: the group might need more breaks; new agenda items may pop up; and so on.
As a facilitator, being able to adapt on the fly is an essential skill, and it is also necessary to communicate and confirm the potential changes to the agenda with the group.
At the end of the day, as a facilitator, you are helping a group achieve the common and agreed-upon objectives they want. So, if there are any change in the desired outcomes, they should be agreed upon by the group.
This is the natural credo for a facilitator. However, there are situations when a facilitator does have a natural interest in the content. After all, one cannot bring an external neutral facilitator for every single meeting in the world. If for any reason you are not content-neutral as a facilitator, you should be clear about this with the group from the beginning.
Recording key takeaways of a conversation is essential for keeping group progress on track and avoiding circling back to the same topics. As a competent facilitator, you should make sure to capture and highlight the key messages — whether that is via visual recording i. All the insights recorded will provide a useful baseline for action-setting and follow-up. Over hundreds of hours of meeting facilitation, you will encounter a myriad of different situations in group dynamics: heated debates, opinionated participants, power dynamics between people, etc.
The broader your facilitation toolbox is, the more skilled you will be in applying the right processes to guide each unique group in its thinking. At the end of the day, facilitation is more of an art than a science. The more you do it, the more sophisticated your skills will become!
In many ways, the best facilitation training is being on the job as a facilitator. In this guide , learn about virtual facilitation and be a confident facilitator, whatever the format. Becoming a good facilitator is all about learning from our peers and building on existing facilitation methods and techniques. In our ongoing series, find methods for your needs curated from the SessionLab library. Helping facilitate effective team meetings is a great skill to develop and can improve your facilitation practice more broadly too.
Find out more in this post on facilitating team meetings! Are any important facilitation skills missing from the list above? Do you have questions about something not covered in this post? I have yet to read a more comprehensive, systematic and immediately applicable article on Facilitation! This is a very good article. It responds to most of the questions I get for prospecting people to the Association of Facilitators.
Thank you. Hi Robert, your sharing is very practical. How can I become a more effective facilitator? Therefore, a facilitator should not be afraid to: Interrupt a speaker if they are off topic, not being concise or are repeating another person Make suggestions to assist the meeting process Make minor adjustments to the agenda as the meeting progresses A good facilitator will: Develop a detailed agenda after discussion with organization leaders.
What exactly does the group want to accomplish? Focus, focus, focus! If discussion wanders, refocus the group on that agenda item. Admit that you are making a "cheat sheet" so you can call people by name. Call on people in the order in which they raise their hands. Mention who follows whose comments, so people can lower their hands and focus on the discussion.
Skilled facilitators call upon a wide range of skills and techniques to help a group understand their common objectives and assist them to achieve them. They are experts on, and champions of, process not content. Each group facilitator will express a personal style and approach. Toggle navigation. Sign Up For Our Newsletter. What is a Facilitator?
Essential Skills for Effective Facilitation We are all feeling it: the pressure to build smart, innovative organizations.
What is a facilitator? To what extent does a facilitative mind set exist in YOUR organization? Trainer vs. Gives feedback to learners Handles problem learners Evaluates skill performance Uses audiovisuals Facilitator: Plan meetings using an agenda Set a productive climate and begins a discussion Gets the group to focus on defining and reaching outcomes Helps group communicate effectively Supports and encourages participation Fosters self-discovery of alternatives and solutions Helps the group make decisions Helps select a team leader Handles disruptive participants effectively excluded from the group Which of these two roles do YOU play more frequently in your organization: team facilitator or team trainer?
Facilitation skills: What every facilitator must do…and not do! Although facilitator jobs vary in focus, there are ten key facilitation techniques all skilled facilitators use to manage the group process: Initiate, propose and make suggestions Divide participants into subgroups Use questioning to draw people out, elicit information and opinions Use silence to make space Keep track of multiple topics and build on the ideas of others Use flip charting to generate additional discussion and record ideas Listen for common themes, bar irrelevant details and redirect discussion Organize the sequence of speakers Paraphrase to clarify or show understanding Have group members relate specific examples to a general idea or make a summary How many of these skills do you use when facilitating meetings?
Be a better facilitator: facilitate meetings and discussions with impact! Your team facilitation discussions will be more successful when you use the following steps: Step 1: Set up the discussion by telling the participants the objective of the discussion, what they are going to talk about, and how the discussion will be conducted.
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